1917 Clean Sox

While America enters the Great War and pressure is put upon owners and players to do their part, the Chicago White Sox prevail in the World Series with many of the same players who will severely taint the game's reputation two years later.

There were no accusations of Heinie Zimmerman intentionally throwing wide of first base to allow a runner on. No one squawked about Dave Robertson muffing a fly ball by design, placing a second runner on. Nothing was implied that home base purposely wasn’t covered during a pickle, bungling up a rundown that allowed a crucial run to score.

Collectively, all of the above made for one big gift from the New York Giants.

And the Chicago White Sox said thank you very much.

The two errors and the botched rundown opened the door for a fourth-inning White Sox rally in Game Six of the 1917 World Series, leading to three unearned runs and a fourth straight Series defeat for the Giants.

Piloted by third-year manager Clarence “Pants” Rowland, the White Sox featured the same cast of performers which, two years later, would evolve itself in one of American sports’ ugliest episodes: The Black Sox Scandal.

For now, the Chicago ballplayers who would toss away a World Series in 1919 appeared to be playing to the best of their ability. Ironically, whether some of their opponents gave it their all would eventually become a matter of suspicion.

Owned by the “Old Roman,” Charles Comiskey, the White Sox had always been one of the American League’s steadiest franchises, historically strong on pitching while weak on hitting. But after winning the World Series in 1906, the team began to fade further and further away from the top, its impotent lineup providing less and less wonder.

That changed in 1915 with the addition of two top-flight batting superstars. Comiskey purchased second baseman Eddie Collins via Connie Mack’s fire sale, and later in the year traded for Cleveland outfielder “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

Collins was the focus of attention in the White Sox lineup, having proved to be the star of stars on the great Philadelphia A’s squads earlier in the decade. But Jackson was potentially more frightening to opponents, a young left-handed slugger so gifted that peers as varied as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson all pointed to Jackson as the best pure hitter they’d ever seen.

The improvement within the Chicago roster didn’t stop with Collins and Jackson. Buck Weaver was slowly yet surely asserting himself as one of the finest third basemen in the game, and with each season was edging closer to a .300 batting average. Catcher Ray Schalk was small in height but built like a tank—with a spirit to match, aggressively barking confidence into his pitchers. Happy Felsch, a young outfielder quickly developing into a solid power hitter, also possessed great command and range in center field.

For 1917, the White Sox picked up two more pieces of the puzzle for their everyday lineup. Chick Gandil arrived from Cleveland as a talented first baseman with a reliable bat; and a 22-year-old rookie from San Francisco named Swede Risberg became an immediate starter at shortstop.

Chicago’s road to 100 wins was truly a team effort. Collins (with a .289 batting average) and Jackson (at .301) endured low numbers by their standards, but others picked them up, especially Felsch (.308, 102 RBIs). Williams (17 wins, eight losses) and Faber (16-13 with a 1.92 earned run average). But it was Cicotte whose numbers stood out the most; the 11-year veteran overwhelmed all expectations with an AL-best 28 wins and 1.53 ERA.

Surviving his team’s wild rollercoaster ride through the 1916 National League season, New York Giants manager John McGraw got his team to win—and keep winning—during the new season.

Retooling his team through the severe ups and downs of the year before, McGraw felt content going into 1917 with the roster that had won him 26 straight at the end of 1916. As usual, his intuition paid off.

More to McGraw’s pleasure, the rebuilt Giants continued to reflect his pugnacious, brawling personality. In a spring training exhibition against the Detroit Tigers at Dallas, second baseman Buck Herzog and the Tigers’ Ty Cobb got into a verbal contest after Cobb had reached base; it turned physicalThe crowd reportedly cheered Cobb, in part because Herzog was of German descent—a point of scrutiny during the Great War. after Cobb stole second. The two were separated, but only until nightfall when they squared off again in Cobb’s hotel room. Herzog, a former boxer, took a pounding from Cobb, who probably would have been a very good pugilist himself had he taken up the sport.

When the 43-year-old McGraw learned of Herzog’s condition the next morning, he intercepted Cobb in the hotel lobby, and baseball’s two titans of wrath had to be restrained from starting a mano-e-mano that would have doubled worldwide the publicity already generated.

The Giants’ bullying worked; Cobb refused to show up for more exhibitions between the teams, and when the last of those games ended, Giants players fired off a wire to Cobb: “It’s safe to rejoin your ballclub now. We’ve left.”

McGraw himself became the object of controversy after the season had begun. Infuriated by a bad call that he felt had cost the Giants a victory in Cincinnati, McGraw charged at umpire Bill Byron—an umpire known for irritating players and managers by singing sarcastic rhymes about them within earshot—and slugged him in the mouth. The singing umpire’s lips were bloodied.

Individually, the Giants presented another healthy mix of talent. Dave Robertson led the NL in home runs (12) for the second straight year. George Burns and ex-Federal League superstar Benny Kauff were second and third in NL steals, with 40 and 30 respectively. And McGraw’s pitching staff performed by committee; seven different hurlers started at least ten games. The de facto workhorse was Ferdie Schupp, who won 21 of 28 decisions.

Two of McGraw’s late-season acquisitions from the year before made major contributions. Third baseman Heinie Zimmerman led the NL with 102 RBIs; starter Slim Sallee won 18 while losing only seven.

The Giants and the White Sox appeared evenly matched for the World Series, and the first four games proved it. The White Sox took the first two games at Chicago’s Comiskey Park; the Giants rebutted by tossing two shutouts (by Schupp and Rube Benton) back at the Polo Grounds to even things up. After a sloppy 8-5 win by Chicago in Game Five, the Series returned to New York for Game Six.

It was there where the Sox would clinch the Series courtesy of the Giants’ fourth-inning lapses on defense. With Benton pitching, Collins became the benefactor of Zimmerman’s bad throw to first; it was Joe Jackson’s fly ball that Robertson dropped in the outfield, as Collins moved to third. Felsch then hit a sharp grounder back to Benton, who caught Collins too far off third base; the ensuing rundown was working well until Zimmerman, with the ball, starting chasing Collins toward home—where there was no one to throw to. Collins had raced past catcher Bill Rariden, who came too far up the line and was out of position. First baseman Walter Holke, who should have maneuvered over to back up Rariden, stood watching on first base instead. Zimmerman made a hopeless attempt to catch the speedy Collins, who would score the game’s first run and give the Sox a lead that they would never relinquish.

Zimmerman, frustrated afterward, scornfully wondered if it would have helped to relay the ball to the only person standing near home plate—umpire Bill Klem.

Klem, upon hearing the comment, volunteered, “I was afraid he would.”

While the 1917 World Series appeared to be clean, ten years later the question arose as to whether the White Sox had bought their way in.

In the ensuing cavalcade of hearings, those accused gave an innocent version of Risberg and Gandil’s story; that the White Sox had put together a pot of money to present to Tiger players—not as a bribe to lose, but instead as a gift for having swept Boston in an earlier series. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, tough on game-fixing but tiring of decade-old accusations, eventually ruled that the money probably was a gift; although he deemed it an act of wrong doing, it was not, in his opinion, criminal.

Even had White Sox players bribed others to get to the World Series—thus earning bonus shares for being there—they likely had their reasons. Comiskey had a reputation as one of baseball’s most notorious cheapskates when it came to paying his players. Even his promises for bonuses were left empty. Legend has it that Eddie Cicotte’s contract called for a $10,000 bonus if he won 30 games in 1917. Cicotte had never won 20 in any one season, so Comiskey figured the bait was a pipedream. But when Cicotte got to 28, Comiskey began to sweat and pressured Pants Rowland to "rest" CicotteComiskey’s pulling back on Cicotte may be nothing more than legend; Cicotte started two of the White Sox’ last six games in 1917—and the Sox won them both. for the World Series rather than let him make his few remaining starts. And when White Sox players were promised extra “bonuses” by Comiskey for winning the Series, they discovered that the reward amounted to nothing more than champagne.

With the reserve clause giving Comiskey the power to pay what he pleased, there was little the players could do.

The prologue to the Black Sox Scandal had been written.

Forward to 1918:All Work or Fight and No Play Baseball scratches and claws to stay intact as World War I reaches its brutal apex.

Back to 1916:A Test of Robins Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson takes on former pal and current foe John McGraw for the National League pennant.

The 1910s Page:The Feds, the Fight and the Fix ﻿﻿The majors suffer growing pains as they deal with a fledgling third league, increased scandal and gambling problems, and a brief interruption from the Great War.

The Greatest Game Ever PitchedIn one of baseball’s most memorable games, Cincinnati’s Fred Toney and Chicago’s Hippo Vaughn both toss no-hitters through nine innings on a cold, dreary Chicago day on May 2. The Reds wake up in the tenth inning with a leadoff single by Larry Kopf, a two-base error awarded to Hal Chase, and a swinging bunt by famed All-American athlete and part-time major leaguer Jim Thorpe, which brings home Kopf. Toney sets down the Cubs one-two-three in the bottom of the tenth to maintain his no-hitter and win the game, 1-0.

The Greatest Doubleheader Ever PitchedTwo months later, on July 1, Toney will set another major accomplishment when he starts, finishes and wins both ends of a doubleheader for the Reds against the Pirates at Cincinnati, scattering just six hits for the two games combined—three in each game—for the fewest ever allowed by a pitcher completing a twinbill. Toney and the Reds win by scores of 4-1 and 5-1.

He Shore Bailed Out the BabeIn another unorthodox pitching feat, Ernie Shore of the Boston Red Sox gets credit for a perfect game on June 23 against Washington—even though he’s not the starting pitcher. That honor goes to Babe Ruth, who allows a leadoff walk to the Senators’ Ray Morgan—and is so infuriated by umpire Brick Owens’ calls that he decks him. With Ruth ejected, Shore enters, watches as Morgan is tagged out attempting to steal, then retires the next 26 batters—technically, if not arguably, a perfect game. Meanwhile, Ruth’s assault costs him ten games.

Hit ’em Where They’re RunningShore later plays the victim of his own infamy July 28, when he becomes the first and only player ever in one game to be hit twice on the basepaths by his teammates’ grounders in a 3-2 Red Sox victory over the Browns.

Next Time, Dress Them Up in Shakespearean Drag With Sunday baseball still illegal in New York City, the Brooklyn Robins try anyway. On July 1, Brooklyn owner Charles Ebbets puts on a concert for paying customers as a charity to fund America’s war effort overseas—then stages a baseball game between the Robins and Giants as an added attraction at no extra cost. The police don’t buy it; Ebbets and manager Wilbert Robinson are both arrested.

Koobed and GroomedBrown pitchers Ernie Koob and Bob Groom toss no-hitters on consecutive days, May 5 and 6, against the Chicago White Sox in St. Louis. They are not back-to-back games, however; Groom’s no-hitter comes in the second game of a doubleheader. The achievement is revenge for a no-hitter fired by the Sox’ Eddie Cicotte (the loser on May 5) against the Browns three weeks earlier. The next no-hitter by a Browns pitcher won’t happen until exactly 36 years.

Living Within the FencesThe Pittsburgh Pirates (51-103), pretty much last in everything during 1917, reach an all-time National League nadir by hitting just seven home runs as a team all year long. Part-time catcher Bill Fischer is the team leader with three.

Until There’s a Reason to Wear Ties…The Detroit Tigers become the last team to wear collared jerseys, disbanding them for a more modern look in 1918. The collar will be revived in a short-lived gimmick by Bill Veeck’s Chicago White Sox, 60 years later.

Sacrificed, This Time, For the Fun of ItRay Chapman of the Cleveland Indians, three years before being killed by a Carl Mays pitch, sets the major league record for sacrifice hits with 67.

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